Grating vocals, cheesy lyrics, constantly overshadowed by male counterparts ... British female MCs haven't always had the best reputation. But that could all be about to change.

On Saturday, BBC radio presenter MistaJam premiered the much-hyped Female Takeover remix of Tinchy Stryder's Game Over, leaving fans to debate which artist delivered the hardest bars – and we're not talking the hardest to decipher. You see, the new graduates of post-grime are taking it back to the streets.

Lioness, one of the UK underground's most respected female lyricists, took a hiatus to go to university but has since bagged management from DJ Ace and can now be heard recording ferocious comebacks to match the male bravado so often played out on rap and grime tracks. "I'll never feel like the underdog/ I'll run up on your set like I'm a don/ And if anyone gets brave then they won't live to tell the story like once upon …" runs her skippy retort on a rejig of Wiley's 1,2,3.

From a similar school of thought is RoxXxan, a fiery spitter of Irish-Jamaican descent who grew up in inner city Birmingham and will be releasing her debut next year. A quick Google search reveals her recent Fire in the Booth freestyle, recorded for BBC 1Xtra, which includes lines such as: "My neck of the woods is like a slap in the face and getting left with no goods/ Back in the day we used to make dens but now they spray lengs to be the star in the hood/ It's not good."

"I think we've got more of an idea of where we want to go and where we don't want to go," explains RoxXxan, during a break from filming more ammunition for YouTube. "We don't want to wear certain things or act a certain way to get the attention. We're just trying to be the best artists. With men people will sit there and rate their flow, they don't look at us the same, but we don't care any more. We know we're good."

And you can forget a nod in the direction of our biggest rap export, Monie Love. She might have broken America in the late-80s but she's not an inspiration to the new breed of inner-city verbalists.

"Realistically its Dynamite we look to," says RoxXxan. "Becoming a woman can be emotional, a lot of us were inspired to get things out because of her. I mean shit, look at me – I'm only 21 and trying to find my way. Writing your shit down is the kind of journey it's worth taking yourself on."